The Great Brazil Topic

[batmacumba]

Hey, Rod,
wouldn't it be better to have one big brasuca thread, instead of opening a new one everytime something happens?

[batmacumba]

No...
Suplicy's prosodic habilities applied on that hilariously cheesy musical puke...
That must be amazing!

[batmacumba]

Calm down, calm down. I'll start it soon.

[batmacumba]

This year's elections promise to be one of the funniest in decades. It's pityfull that the electronic ballots don't allow some Cacareco's descendant to run.

[batmacumba]

This. I have some 'Estados Unidos do Brasil' currency, It's weird to read them.

[batmacumba]

PSB-PR is pretty right-wing, since Arraes lend It to Lerner. Most of It's members came from former PFL. PPS became a completely different outfit since the early 90's, and is a social-liberal party, on the European sense, but heavily linked to the elites. I wouldn't put them on the left wing. They're also media whores, much like the PV, which makes them a PSDB puppet party. In addiction, Richa is no presidential material.
Soninha [Sonsinha] Francine is probably the best representation of Brazilian former progressive part of the upper-middle class. A liberal youngster, she was a MTV host concerned with citizenship and youth political participation, with a clear green politics approach, joined the PT, getting out during the mensalão scandal, mainly due media pressure. Subsequentially, She followed any media trend, becoming a harsh anti-Petista, repeating plenty of right-wing speech delivered by our harder-than-Fox anti-left MSM, but yet maintaining a green approach and defending sustaintable ways of life. I would characterize her as being blue-green, nowadays. Simpathetic, but silly. She also became a staple of despise/hate by the left, due her clueless rants and mainly for being in charge of Serra's poisonous internet campaign (which, in turn, triggered a hilarious grassroots anti-Serra campaign).

[batmacumba]

He lost mandate through Electoral Justice in 2009. 2nd placed candidate, José Maranhão (PMDB) served what remained of term, but was defeated in 2010 election.

This was a weird election. The PT allied with the 'centrist' bunch of the oligarchy, while both the 'progressive' and 'conservative' oligarchic wings supported a young progressive reformer.

Do you have any clue of how's Coutinho's administration doing? Is He following Dudu Beleza's achievements? More to the right, more to the left?

[batmacumba]

Great day. Cabo Anselo's amnesty compensation was denied (It seems Nilmário Miranda finally accepted the black flag theory), the law that allows government to take properties where there was slave labour (or in conditions analogue to slavery)  passed with minimal opposition (which shows the real power of the 'ruralist' caucus) and once again the congress was turned into a circus, with the testimony of Carlinhos Cachoeira.
Now I have some trust on the Truth Commission and the day Cachoeira will show the links between Zé Dirceu and Perillo (with some other Toucans as a bonus).

[batmacumba]

Oh, how this would be a better world if Mendes' extreme crookery finally get caught.
And LOL on Joaquim Francisco at PSB. 'Pai Arraia' must be whirling wild inside his coffin.

[batmacumba]

Now, Perillo's problems are turning for worse. He sold a home where Cachoeira was living before prison. Home owner said that he paid in money, while he says that he received three checks.

And Veja is proving again to be more hackish than Pravda and Granma multiplied by FOX. This week issue is trying their best to transform It in a problem of the government, while It seems to me that Grupo Abril has more than weak connections with the story.

In São Paulo, PSB is going to endorse Haddad, while PSDB will endorse Serra.
In Recife, Humberto Costa (PT) will be candidate for Mayor. National PT vetoed João da Costa.

Haddad's candidacy is the dumbest moving Lula's done in his carreer (or the smartest one, and I'm a moron). Pernambuco's PT seems to be even more divided than MG's.

In Salvador, former mayor Mario Kértesz (PMDB) will go back to politics after 20 years. He went from politics to become one of most-listened radio hosts in Bahia. He served two times as mayor, one as governor-appointed from 1979 to 1981 and elected from 1986 to 1988.

Wow! Eliseu, now Kértesz... Who'll be on Return of the Mummy III, Antônio Ermírio?

[batmacumba]

Kértesz' newest personal enemy is state legislator Reverend Sargent Isidorio (PSB), a crazy former policeman who was expelled from state police in 2001 strike. Isidorio says that is a former gay and that had AIDS. Isidorio fought against prostate exam too.

Afraid to fall in love with the physician. Well, He is interesting from the political sociology POV, representing the perdurance of two trends in PSB: the 2001 policemen strikers and Garotinho's evangelicals. Here in MG these two political animals keeps on a neverending circulation throughout PSB, PMDB and some random just-for-election acronym. Sometimes they stop on PDT.

[batmacumba]

Rehabilitating this thread.

Actually, It seems that the Supreme Court ruling about SS couples in Brazil effectively legalized SSM. I'll give a check and post about It.

That's the actual situation:

There's a 1996 law that makes the facilitation of upgrading 'stable relationships' (a legally recognized situation, defined in the 1988 constitution) to marriages mandatory for courts and registration offices (cartórios).
With the 2011 resolution, allowing SS couples the right to form 'stable relationships', SSM rights are automatically granted, thus. The main difference is that, while a straight couple may apply directly for marriage, a SS one must, first, get a stable relationship registered. Since may 2011, many SS couples managed to get legally married, and, once this is a matter of constitutional interpretation, not of lawmaking, the only thing that could be changed would be creating full equal treatment, scrapping the 'stable relationship' phase.

The bad news is that a completely imbecilic bigot, a racist and homophobic evangelic priest managed to be selected for the Human Rights Commission in the congress!!!!!!

[batmacumba]

Well,

I'm trying to write this since last week, but I took my computer to the office (where the connection sucks) and have only my Methuselahmic laptop at home, so sorry for the delay.

Basically the country is on fire in a way it didn't happen since Collor's impeachment (and with a institutional response that wasn't seen since the dictatorship). And all because a mere 20 cents. Or they were only the grain that started the landslide.

Here is a text in English:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/world/americas/thousands-gather-for-protests-in-brazils-largest-cities.html
[quote ]
Sharing a parallel with the antigovernment protests in Turkey, the demonstrations in Brazil intensified after a harsh police crackdown last week stunned many citizens. In images shared widely on social media, the police here were seen beating unarmed protesters with batons and dispersing crowds by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into their midst.
[/quote]

There are some prequels, sure.
The liberal middle class is scared of the religious congressmen actions and their law proposals, one of them restricting abortion in the case of rape, plus giving the father (!!!) the right to share (or even to solely have, if the mother rejects) the guard of the child. Also, the director of the AIDS prevention program was forced to resign because of a advertise where prostitution wasn't put in a moralistic view.

Two weeks ago, an action of the Federal Police (our equivalent to the FBI), to settle a dispute between indigenous peoples and farmers resulted in the death of a native. President Dilma Roussef send the national Guard and stated: 'We've followed the law'.

Then, last week, a protest against the raise in bus tariffs was dealt with extreme brutality by the the police (in the case, controlled by the state government). Governor Alckmin simply didn't comment anything. The media (Veja, Folha de São Paulo, Rede Globo) called the protesters 'vandals' and 'rascals', deploring their 'radicalism' and stuff. Mayor Haddad said he wouldn't hear 'vandals'.
The next day, lots of citizens went out on the street. The police reaction was... unspeakable.
They started to persecute protesters and newspeople who were covering the situation. A reporter from the same Folha, who was standing away from the main area of conflicts was shot intentionally by a policeman, on the eye, with a rubber bullet. Tear gas bombs were thrown at anyone who dared be on the streets around. Beatings were happening everywere.





The media deplored the protesters.



What the owners of information still didn't realize is that they don't own it anymore. On Thursday night, everyone with a facebook account was posting and replicating lots of photos and videos showing nonviolent protesters being beat to the ground, teargas everywere and the police aggressively attacking anyone, without any motive, just to hurt.





The weekend was one of tension. Other protests against bus tariffs started to pop. The media, suddenly, changed it's discourse: that weren't 'vandals' or 'rascals' anymore; now they were activists; they were protesting against 'the country's awful situation', 'the corruption of those politicians'.

No word on Alckmin's police brutality.
A lot of analysis on "How this is bad for Dilma's Government".
No word about the legal piece, produced by my state justice court, under the state government sponsorship, that forbid any demonstration on the Confederation Cup, around the stadium or anywhere, and which could be punished with prisons and high fees.

The most visible thing happening in the country these days is the Confederation Cup. So, for people in my city, it became an obvious target.



Today, people gathered on the most busy part of the city at 13:00, to protest. It was a very generic protest.
There were the original anti-tariff people, local environmental groups, the strong young opposition to the mayor, lots of punks and trotskyists, but also, anti-Dilma people and a lot of folks questioning the meaning of expending with stadiums when health and education are still in a long way to be even mediocre. 'Round 25.000 to 35.000 people.
It was more of a protest for the right to protest (and against police brutality). Apart of this, you could find practically everything.
The march aimed to walk the 8 km, uphill and downhill, and uphill, and downhill again (this is a very hilly city) to the stadium. But, near the main entrance of the university campus, the policeforce, which until then was being very polite, simply mocked their colleagues from SP and started to attack cowardly the protesters, while they chanted "no violence".




I accompanied the march on its first 4 or 5 Km, and got back to work, once I've found that everything was OK.
I'm still deciding if I should have been solidary and go all the way, or If I was lucky and escaped a very bad situation.

The traffic cameras which monitor the avenue were turn off a little earlier.
People who were working gathered at 18:00, 19:00, in the same monument, again, to protest against the police action. No one cared, but the folks who searched for sanctuary in the campus were being chased by the police until around 21:00. It seems that the whole problem, here, was the tentative to taint the sacrosanct happening of the Cup.





Each city seems to have its own demands, brought to the surface by the monstrous action of SP's police. In Rio, more than 100.000 citizen went to the streets. Things were a little more complicated. Some idiots vandalized a ancient building, but, on average, it was much less problematic than one would expect of a demonstration, that big, which lacked leadership.






And in Brasília, people danced on the congress ceiling.



And occupied it.



So, it's been a very cathartic thing, but completely unfocused. I fear our disgusting media may be able to control it, but few people I know agree with me.
Nevertheless, the amount of people I've saw falling on the narrative that this was against "this awful government" and the imbeciles asking for "Dilma's impeachment now!" who are popping all over Facialbook, is not little, but the reaction against "those reactionaries trying to control the movement" is also high.
Another one is scheduled this week, I hope I can follow it to see the reality, not the narratives.

[batmacumba]

Nop. The main discussion is if the anti-Dilma right will be able to take it.
While the original protesters were leftists (partially governist, partially trotsy opposition), targeting SP's government (and this is the main reason why the media was aggressively against them), from the moment a bigger share of the population started supporting them, the same media changed completely its narrative and transformed their reports in some piece of fiction. Now, what was clearly against a municipal management ultracorporatist model (one of the best business there are, is to own a urban bus company), suddenly changed in 'the youth protesting against this awful government and all this awful state of things!'.

So, the indignation with SP's police brought lots of people who weren't concerned with the transportation model, while the media Machiavellian turncoating brought the opposition, who were trying to start protests since José Dirceu's fall - but always met a laughable failure.
Yesterday, I was behind a big group of PSTU (which is some trotskyist version of KKE) rank-and-file, plus their union people and, between them and me, a guy was standing with a poster asking for 'more free market'.
One of my very reactionary acquaintaces (the kind of guy who buy American and European hard-right speech, coupled with a neo-ultra-catholic vision of state, opposing any anticonformism) was praising the manifestation, only concerned with 'those vandals who may pervert it'. The same guy who, a year ago, was asking for some beating on a group who was being very vocal in a municipal issue.

My father, and everyone I know from his generation, is concerned with the lack of leadership, amazed about how such a thing can happen and fearing a 'fatherland saviour' may use the movements to break with institutional normality.

But, basically, here in Belo Horizonte, the march was composed by the old middle-class and high-middle-class children, plus the usual suspects, plus some older folks, like me, who are disgruntled with what we're perceiving as a restriction on our democratic rights. So, It's a too much diverse group to be conducted to an aim. And in each city there is a different grouping.

Let's see how the various groups, internet communities and media narratives will struggle between themselves.

Thanks for the educated question.

[batmacumba]

And then there's my family saying this is all happening because people are tired of PT. There are many ways of distorting things, unfortunately... And many people believe what newspapers say...

Not to mention the manipulative analysis on El País. That guy is a PSDB hack, I didn't see one 'new middle-class' youngster who wasn't a leftist militant. The unorganized youth was a thousand percent from the 'old one', which is, in practice, part of the white elite.

According to a friend in Salvador, the movement for public transportation reform was conspicuous there, and responsible for the great majority of the protest.

[batmacumba]

Well, let me put it this way:

everyone is projecting themselves on their analysis. The facts are:

- a traditional popular movement was putting their demands (the MPL - Movimento Passe Livre / Free [bus] Pass Movement, basically a movement led by students) - every year they do protests; while inflation was around 370% between 94-13, the bus tariffs raised 700% (in Belo Horizonte, can't tell about São Paulo) and a ever growing group defends that abolishing tariffs will, in the end, be more economic to the government;
- the traditional media systematically called them vandals (vândalos) and rascals (baderneiros), because, as traditional as the protests, were their conflicts with the police (a couple of years ago it was made obvious that the protesters were less to blame than the police force);
- this year, there were some precedents that were making many groups pissed off, and there is a spread perception that politics obey only rich pressure groups, with every sphere of government controlled by corporations, evangelicals and machine controllers, independently of party lines, usually in siamese twinning;
- also, this year, the police brutality went out of control; it was so grotesque that it made lots of people act in the way they could: sharing on social media;
- this made the traditional media look bad, but they, initially, didn't care; only after journalists got hurt by the police's coward actions, the fingerpointing to the 'rascals' stopped;
- once indignation was spread and people started getting out to the streets, to support the original protesters, a lot of narratives started:
    1 - finally 'the people' was showing the "spread dissatisfaction with 'the government'", that MSM always talked about, but had never put more than a dozen rich brats in the street;
    2 - it was against corruption;
    3 - it was the middle class demanding better services;
- a couple of demonstration days after, some of these groups really started showing themselves at the rallies, among other groups; neither of them is the 'new middle class'; anyone who repeat this narrative is ill-intentioned and had not even got to any of the demonstrations;
- basically, the groups that are showing there are:
    1 - the radical left;
    2 - groups advocating non-corporatist urban solutions, sustainable and focused on the citizen, not on constructors profits (these groups are, generally, twinned with those on item 1, or with the PT);
    3 - people showing unfocused indignation with police brutality, corporatist government control, authoritarian state government actions and an absolute lack of accountability by politicians of all parties;
    4 - elite kids, who adhered to the protests following the MSM narrative (they're each day more conspicuous, but far from majority, yet), complaining about anything the federal government does, including the programs for the poor; this ones tried to beggin anti-Lula or anti-Dilma demonstrations before, but were ridiculously unsuccessful;
    5 - people complaining that the spending with the World Cup is misdirected and should be going to healthcare and education (these are a mix of number 1 and 4, but - its my evaluation, sure - these last ones are doing it in a opportunistic way, once they were for welfare privatization, before);
- it's a very diverse group with very diverse demands, started by indignation and fulled by so many different (and sometimes opposite) dissatisfactions.

Anything else is a projection of the analyst.

So, let me project my analysis and concerns.

- Poor people are watching it with some amusement.
- The 'new middle class' only exists because this government's programs. They may share, now, some concerns with the old one, but they're still grateful enough to Lula and still see the PSDB as the guys who didn't want the kind of economy structure that put them forward.
- The intellectual part of the 'old middle class' is kinda confused, and could support the PT, the left opposition or someone who could convince them that the corporatist status can be broken.
- The traditionalist part of the 'old middle class' hates the PT government, once they've been told how bad it is for the last 11 years and they believe that the whole movement is what they were expecting from 'the people'.
- The actual elite is playing puppets and waiting to see what happens.
- Anything can happen with the protests.

- I remember very well FHC's government: nothing to do, nothing to work on, bare stagflation, a privatization program which put everything in the hands of PSDB's financial supporters, making awful deals for the State (many of them made the State pay to PSDB's guys get the companies); a general prosecutor who stopped any investigation against government staff; a quite decadence from Itamar Franco's and Ciro Gomes' Plano Real; so: no, thanks; anything that resemble it (a.k.a. neoliberalism or any name you give it) will gain my combat;
- the great problem the country is facing is the preponderance of business interests over public ones; and a myopic approach on infrastructure, following constructor's orientation, not planners;
- Cities are being utterly destroyed by over-construction, infrastructural works aimed at expanding car use, destruction of built cultural heritage to build skyscrapers where the extant infrastructure is unable to bear, brutal eviction of poor...

These two last concerns are (clearly for me) behind the diffuse dissatisfaction of one part of the original protests, the other part is more tricky, but I'll try to make a call.

The raise on living standards for the poor impacted greatly the middle class. Many of my somewhat conservative friends are complaining they aren't able to pay for the house servants anymore.
Yeah, that's what you've read. Housemaids, gardeners, handymen to change your lights. That's what the Brazilian middle-class was used. Working hands were so cheap, you lived like a rich. And then, one day, you can't pay them that crap you used to pay, anymore. They have options. But the problem is that you pay a somewhat expensive school for your children, a somewhat expensive healthcare plan, and the free, public option is crap.
So, first, you stop being a slot and start doing some home improvement yourself. But you work 44 hours a week, your wife too and your culture (and climate, and dust everywhere) asks for your house to be cleaned everyday; someone have to watch the children after school; poor are getting life-standard improvement, rich are getting richer, you have neither; you see a lot of things going in a wrong direction, you are a well informed person, but the political class seemed to have married entrepreneurs and forget about you. You pay the taxes for it all.
So, lots of my middle class friends started summing 2+2. And I was surprised, last weekend, to hear a bunch of people who had ever voted for the right saying: "our parents had free, good quality education and health care, affordable housing; they were convinced to change it, got what they were promised, but now our children will have neither".

Well, maybe this can be a too little and biased microcosmos, a bunch of thirty-many and forty-something years old professionals who were well educated in top-ranking universities, in a city where local politics were always dominated by left-social-christian politicians. But it is pretty telly for me.

[batmacumba]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22961874
Dilma pretends to sympathize with the protesters.  And so it goes.  Lol

I don't doubt she sympathize, deep in the most unreachable part of her soul. But she compromised too much with too much crooks to do anything. The only thing the PT wants, is to preserve their social programs and neokeynesian model, at any cost.

[batmacumba]

A glimpse on Monday's march, before the police attacked.

[batmacumba]

In related news, can Marco Feliciano be shot from a cannon into the sun?

Even my mass attending, pious catholic friends are wishing this, these days. Now that people`s choices may be medically treated, some people are pushing for religion to be included.
I think is fair.

[batmacumba]

In other news, the mayor and the governor decreed tomorrow will not be a working day.

I`m trying to write about last week (here were probably the most problematic place, and some things are definily scary), but I`m having some time only now. I`ll try to post it still today, cause tomorrow will surely be a watershed day in all those things, for worse or for better.

[batmacumba]

The Brazilian middle class is very different from the Turkish middle class. In fact they're almost exactly the opposite politically.

In Turkey, they're left-wing, in Brazil they're right wing.

Although the people protesting in Brazil may actually be the children of the middle class who are themselves poorer and more leftist.

That is actually deadly wrong. The middle class of Brazil is fairly balanced, we have many people that become rich, neaveau riche, that do have a conservative background and stuff, we have some intelectual middle class that is pretty leftist, and we have our elite that is is highly conservative.

Many guys on the prostests on the streets are children from the conservative elite or from the neaveau riche elite, but they are not Conservative! Matter of fact, many of them, specially on Rio are moved by strong leftist ideas and many of them have supported Marcelo Freixo on Rio's Mayorial Election.

That is all.

Also, these conservatives adhered only after they started watching the big media's fiction. There is a new-middle-class youth, too; they started appearing at the same time the conservatives did, and with a similar speech, but there are some interesting differences, I'll try to develop this later. Now It's time to go to the street.

[batmacumba]

Well, I'm back from the marvellous sensation of breathing tear gas. And, this time, it seems the police was in their right.
Some updates:

Tuesday/thursday period summary:

Demonstrations were hold daily, usually starting in the beginning of the afternoon. The MSM kept the narrative of an anticorruption, antigovernment spirit (but contaminated with some vandals), lots of new groups adhered and things started getting even more confuse.

The dispute over the demonstrations' general face was maintained, with some rightwingers showing themselves, and this led to awful aggressions of those new groups against people from leftist groups. Believing the media narrative that the demonstrations were simply against the federal government, lots of elite children, right out of their gyms and shopping malls,  got out to the streets and, once they found 'invaders' (those awful leftists Veja told them to hate) they started beating lone leftists, on thursday, tearing their flags and breaking the masts. Sure, they didn't confront those who were organized in groups.

Also, real rascals started showing and vandalize anything they could. An imbecil attacked São Paulo's mayoralty building, on wednesday. It was shown, after, that his family had links on the transports business community, which led some to avent the possibily of an operation black flag. But it was just an imbecil.

[batmacumba]

With a big delay, just to finish and retake the presidential candidates on the election thread.

Thursday/Saturday

The reaction on the left was more confuse. Many started saying that the demonstrations were transforming into some type of antidemocratic movement (and the general tone many of those new groups had, was very similar to fascistoid speech) and called for a boycott, with some complaining the anti-Dilma and impeachment calls were some kind of coup being staged.
Others reacted more sensibly, pondering that the unorganized left had started it all, that the platform of better healthcare and education, critics to corporatist urban manegement and struggle against the type of politics where an association of enterpreuners and politicians defines everything (not caring about the public) were all historical demands of the left, so it would be more important to keep remembering the population what it's all about.

Online, the dispute was between conservatives accusing the left of being hipocrates, considering right-wing demonstrations as tentative coup, while left-wing ones were 'the people on the streets'. Leftist answered telling that the conservatives had their right to demonstrate, but they should start their own rallys.
With the raise of anti-PT, anti-Left and anti-Dilma bunch, people started putting numbers, to counter them, showing that the petistas and other leftwing congresspeople were the only to vote on education funding, amongst other things.

Daily demonstrations kept going. The ones in Rio had clearly a more leftwing face (it was the city where evictions were more conspicuous, plus the ever anedoctally bad hospitals - once I needed some healthcare on the state, I couldn't even feel enraged; they were so void of any reliable service and so incompetent, I would just laugh if I wasn't in need of medical assistence). The ones in Brasília were more focused on the congress. The ones in São Paulo acquired a more generic anti-corruption tone, departing from its more focused beginning. In Belo Hotizonte, the tone became more anti-Cup.
The young leaders of the MPL, the movement which started the demonstrations were interviewed in a public channel (no speech about them on the private ones). They exposed their motivation, called the demonstrations not to loose their politization, in order to avoid manipulations, and stood to the questions of MSM journalists (who were, surprisingly, very fair with them).

On friday night, at 9PM, president Dilma came on national network to address the nation about the protests. She defended the right of demonstrators to be on the streets, but said that the 'vandals' wouldn't be tolerated (no word on police brutality); promised a national public transportation program and a national pact with governors and mayors on the enhancement of public services quality. Guaranteed that every public dime borrowed to build stadiums would return to the federal treasure and put forward a bill which was in the congress, allocating 100% of the funds generated by pre-salt oil drilling on education.
The speech was received with glee by petistas, with coolness by the rest of the left and with mistrust by the rest of the people, but it was efficient in avoiding a bigger unrest. The main reaction was 'Let's see'.

On Saturday, a big demonstration was already scheduled. There were more new-middle-class folks than usual. An interesting thing about them is the complete lack of any focused platform. Many political scientists noted that this is a community that lacks some kind of ideological cohesion and is thus completely unable to put forward cohese reivindications. The only way they know to show some insatisfaction is a generic patriotic speech, whitch makes them undistinguishable of the traditional Brazilian conservatives, who are still indebted with integralist speech. Nevertheless, when questioned, diferently of the conservative elite, they are very opened to leftwing proposals and don't see the state as a problem, only the system's corruption, while seeing entrepreuners as part of the problem.

Here, the demonstration was met with a harsh policial reaction; people fell from a viaduct (one of them died, this thursday) and were hit on the heads by teargas bombs. Some rascals reacted destroying a Hyundai carshop and set some public equipment on fire. Sure, media shown only these, and told the public that the police reacted to the rascals actions. This pissed of many demonstrators, but the media was all the time trying to separate 'pacific' from 'violent' demonstrators, calling for the first ones to separate themselves from the laters.